BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

REPRESSIVE ELEMENTS OF THE DIAZ M.CI11NE 149
night the gcndarmes have little red lanterns which they
set in the middle of the streets and hover near. One
sees these lanterns, one at each corner, twinkling down
the entire length of the principal streets. There is a
system of lantern signals and when one lamp begins to
swing the signal is carried along and in a trice every
gendarme on the street knows what has happened.
While the "plain clothes" department of the Mexican
police is a comparatively insignificant affair, there exists,
outside of and beyond it, a system of secret police
on a very extensive scale. An American newspaperman
employed on an English daily of the capital once
told me: "There are twice as many secret police as regular
police. You see a uniformed policeman standing
in the middle of the street. That is all you see, or at
least all you notice. But leaning against the wall of
that alley entrance is a man whom you take to be a
loafer; over on the other side lounges a man whom you
think is a peon. Just start something and then try to
get away. Both of those men will be after you. There
is no getting away in Mexico; every alley is guarded
as well as every street!
"Why," said he, "they know your business as well as
you do yourself. They talk with you and you never suspect.
When you cross the border they take your name
and business and address, and before you've reached the
capital they know whether you've told the truth or not.
They know what you're here for and have decided what
they're going to do about it."
Perhaps this man overstated the case—the exact truth
of these matters is hard to get at—but I know that it
is impossible to convince the average Mexican that the
secret police system of his country is not a colossal institution.